storing temperature concerns
I am a baker at a local restaurant. I do both the desserts and the breads, with much more experience in the pastry department than the breads. This has not caused any issue until this past week. The hoagies I am making are having issues. It recently got cold here so the kitchen has gotten colder, as they do not put the heat on in the kitchen. Also, I just found out out that my manager recently dropped the temeperature of the walk-in. I store my hoagie dough in the walk-in, as I make a big batch twice a week and just pull out what I need each day. In this past week I have had lack luster hoagies, and twice where I had dough that got very sticky and refused to rise, at all. I looked at the walk-in temperature this morning and it was sitting at about 36 degrees farenheit, before people started moving in and out of it. Could this low temperature of the walk-in be causing my hoagie dough woahs? Or is there another culprit that I need to look into?
The yeast is alive but not very active at 36°F. If you are stuck with it, you will have to take it out sooner and let it come up to a temperature where it is more active.
Are you bulk fermenting and then retarding, or just mixing and retarding?
If the latter, you might consider letting it ferment for a while before retarding. You will have to take it out earlier than you were when it was warmer in any case.
I am stuck with it, unfortunately.
I am just mixing and retarding. I will try letting it ferment before retarding, and pulling it out earlier, hopefully that helps. It is good to know that the yeast is not dead at the temperature.